GILLIAN BICKLEY, PhD (Leeds), MLitt, BA (Hons), CertEd (Brist), FRSA, is the author of The Golden Needle: The Biography of Frederick Stewart (1836-1889) (David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, 1997); and The Stewarts of Bourtreebush (Centre for Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen, 2003); compiler and editor of The Development of Education in Hong Kong, 1841-1897: as Revealed by the Early Education Reports of the Hong Kong Government 1848-1896 (2002) and contributing editor of A Magistrate’s Court in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong: Court in Time (2005) (both distributed by the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press). She contributed a new entry on each of Frederick Stewart, Founder of Hong Kong Government Education, and George Smith, first Anglican Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). She has taught at the University of Hong Kong, the University of Lagos (Nigeria), and the University of Auckland (New Zealand); and recently completed twenty-two years as Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, Hong Kong Baptist University. Two of her poetry collections have received Project Grants from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.
"Bickley has made use of everyday life situations and turned them into life lessons. Sightings inspires us to slow down and taste the sense of the city." — Ma Kwai Hung, Examiner, Hong Kong Arts Development Council.
"The variety of human life and the individual response to life, these are Gillian Bickley's central interests." — Emeritus Professor I. F. Clarke and M. Clarke, UK. (Moving House)
"Thought-provoking and entertaining." — David Wilson, Sunday Morning Post, HK. (For the Record)
"[The] lengthy introduction ... is a masterly and impartial survey." — Bradley Winterton, Taipei Times. (A Magistrate's Court)
"Dr Bickley's life of Frederick Stewart is beautifully written, eminently readable, and at times moving." — Lady Saltoun.
"We need more studies of this type to understand fully the complexities of colonial rule. [I] thoroughly enjoyed this book." — Clive Whitehead, University of Western Australia, Int. J. of Lifelong Education.
"Bickley tells the story with unswerving admiration and many vivid touches." — Douglas Hurd, The Scotsman. (The Golden Needle)
"An essential resource for those researching colonial education policy." — Norman Miners, University of Hong Kong, in The Journal of Imperial and Colonial History. (The Development of Education in Hong Kong, 1841-1897 . . .)
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VERNER BICKLEY, MBE, PhD (London), MA, BA (Hons), DipEd, FIL, FRSA, has led culture and language learning projects in seven countries. He first experienced other national cultures in India and Sri Lanka as a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (Special Branch). After demobilisation, he added to this experience as an Education Officer with the Singapore Government, as a British Council Officer in Burma, Indonesia and Japan (where he was also First Secretary in the British Embassy Cultural Department, Tokyo), as Head of Language Training for Saudi Arabian Airlines, as Full Professor of English at the University of Hawaii and as Director of the Culture Learning Institute of the East-West Centre in Honolulu. In Hong Kong, he was Assistant Director of Education and Director of the Government's Institute of Language in Education. His Searching for Frederick and Adventures Along the Way (2001) describes his and his wife, Gillian Bickley's research into the life and work of Frederick Stewart, the Magistrate whose cases are reported and discussed in A Magistrate’s Court in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong: Court in Time. An experienced actor and radio presenter, Verner Bickley is the reader of the full audio version of The Golden Needle: The Biography of Frederick Stewart (1836-1889).
"Verner Bickley writes in a mostly light-hearted vein, with a gentle humour." — Sir James Hodge, formerly British Consul General, Hong Kong. (Searching for Frederick)
"The contributors have written with insight and understanding ... a most readable book." — Sir T. L. Yang." (A Magistrate's Court)
"I congratulate Dr Verner Bickley for realizing, in the early 1990s, that the Summer Olympics would certainly come to China, and for understanding the considerable importance of this event. For well over a decade, he has sustained his conscientious interest. The result is this interesting, varied and helpful book, which suitably informs and prepares us ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics. The value of Dr Bickley's work will certainly continue beyond this event, as a tool to understand future Olympiads as well." — The Hon. Dr Arnaldo de Oliveira Sales, GBM, JP, Chairman of the Hong Kong Olympic Academy and Hon. Life President of the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China.
Order Forward to Beijing! A Guide to the Summer Olympics
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CHRISTOPHER COGHLAN, BCL, was born in Karachi, then in India, on 12 October 1943. After public school at Ampleforth in Yorkshire and university in Dublin, he started his working life as an articled clerk to a firm of accountants in London. After two years he entered the Inner Temple and was called to the Bar in 1972. He practised on the South Eastern Circuit, latterly specialising in crime. Christopher arrived in Hong Kong in January 1986 as a Crown Counsel in the Attorney General's Chambers. His work as a Crown Counsel was solely criminal, specialising in appellate work. He left the Legal Department in 1994 and returned to England to practise. Within eighteen months he was back in Hong Kong, again as a barrister but this time at the private Bar, in which he continues.
"The contributors have written with insight and understanding ... a most readable book." — Sir T. L. Yang." (A Magistrate's Court)
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TIM HAMLETT, BA (Hons), DipEd (Oxford); MA (London), worked on provincial newspapers in England before moving to Hong Kong in 1980. He held senior editorial positions on several Hong Kong publications, including leading an award-winning investigative team for the Hong Kong Standard, before joining Hong Kong Baptist University as a Lecturer in Journalism in 1988. Now an Associate Professor at the University, he continues to write extensively for both the print and broadcast media and is a presenter of the Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) Mediawatch programme.
"The contributors have written with insight and understanding ... a most readable book." — Sir T. L. Yang." (A Magistrate's Court)
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TOMMY MARTIN was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1956. His love of football started at a very early age, playing in the back lanes of Newcastle. Tommy Martin's dream was to play football at any level, even if he had to leave the Newcastle he loved. "I have been very lucky in my life to have traveled the world doing something I love with a passion, playing for twenty years and now teaching and coaching children football for another twenty years." At twelve years old he started playing for Walker Boys' Youth Scheme and then for the well-respected Wallsend Boys' Youth Football Club, which developed such world-class players as Peter Beardsley and the great Alan Shearer. Graduating though their youth schemes, Tommy Martin went on to play top class football in the northern leagues of Newcastle. But in 1980 he decided he wanted to travel the world and moved on to Jersey, Israel, Australia, and the USA. From 1986 to 1994, he played in the California Southern League for the Los Angeles Exiles Football Club, before being recruited by the former Liverpool and England player and coach Jimmy Melia, to join him as a player and skills coach for the Dallas Inter Football Club, where Tommy worked with the Club's youth teams. Tommy's reputation as a skills coach led him, in 1995 to be hired by the USA Olympic Youth Development Program representing the State of Texas, and in 1996, he was voted one of the top skills coaches for the under-thirteen age group by the Southern Youth Coaches Committee of the USA. In 1999/2000 he worked as a skills coach for the Hawaii Youth Soccer Federation in Honolulu and in 2001 he started his own football academy in Palm Beach, Florida, USA, which he ran until 2003. He is now a Physical Education Teacher and Football Coach in Asia, where he also runs his own football skills academies in various schools and is involved with the local professional team where he lives. Tommy Martin is a fully qualified coach with certified licenses from the English Football Association and FIFA. He holds the American Soccer Federation A licence and also has a certificate in sports management and sports injuries. In 1998 he acquired his teacher's degree in Physical Education from Hartford University, Minnesota, USA. An experienced skills coach, he has consistently developed young players from recreation league standard to classic league standard. Many have gone on to win soccer scholarships. His successful football skills book, Soccer the Right Technique was published in the USA in 1994. ("Information supplied by the author".)
Tommy's first book for Proverse Hong Kong is planned for publication in time for the European Championship in June 2008. Advance orders are being accepted now direct from Proverse Hong Kong.
"Tommy Martin is to be saluted for listening to our pundits long enough to take note of their favourite phrases and for his brave efforts to make linguistic sense of some of these bons mots." – John Dykes, Presenter, ESPN Star Sports' football coverage.
Advance order "Spanking Goals and Toe Pokes: Football Sayings Explained"
KATE ROGERS, MA (Literature and Creative Writing), TESL (UWindsor), BA (Journalism) (Ryerson) has been teaching writing, literature and English as a Second Language (ESL) for colleges and universities in Asia since the turn of the millennium. She has had poetry published in anthologies and literary magazines in Canada, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. Her bi-lingual collection (English and Chinese) of reflective essays about bird watching, conservation and culture, The Swallows’ Return (Yen zi lai le) was published by the Taiwan government's Endemic Species Research Institute, COA, Executive Yuan, in 2006. Taipei Times reviewer, Bradley Winterton, gave warm praise: "This bilingual book on Taiwan's birds is excellent. . . . It contains a marvelous account of the history of conservation on the island." ("Kate Rogers' new book on birds in Taiwan, 'The Swallows' Return,' will have English-speaking twitchers and conservationists jumping for joy", Taipei Times, 15 October 2006, p. 18.) Her first book of poetry, "Painting the Borrowed House", to be published by Proverse in March 2008, has been awarded a Project Grant by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.
"Here is an author in her prime – confident, sure of her craft, and willing to take risks." – Donna Langevin, Canada, author of "Improvising in the Dark" and "The Second Language of Birds". "Full of epiphanies, vivid emotion and surprise."
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GEOFFREY ROPER, QPM, CPM, BA (Hons). Born in Peterborough, England in 1937, a Year of the Rat, Geoffrey had an urge to roam, fuelled largely by tales of overseas Christian missionaries at his local Anglo-Catholic church. After education at King's School, Peterborough, and two years of National Service spent applying unsuccessfully for overseas postings, Geoffrey finally reached the East when he flew into Hong Kong on a Bristol Britannia on 22 November 1958, to become Probationary Sub-Inspector of Police. After retirement from the Police in 1993, in the rank of Assistant Commissioner, he has furthered his education by travelling widely, mostly in China, and obtaining an Honours Degree in Arts and Humanities at the Open University of Hong Kong.
"The contributors have written with insight and understanding ... a most readable book." — Sir T. L. Yang." (A Magistrate's Court)
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GARRY TALLENTIRE was born in North East England and educated at Teesdale Grammar School, Barnard Castle. He achieved a BA (Hons) (Law) at Nottingham University with subsidiary subjects Politics and Economic and Social History. His first post was as a Court Clerk at Nottingham City Magistrates' Court where he was articled to the Clerk to the Justices. In 1975, he was admitted as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales. In 1977, he was appointed Deputy Clerk to the Justices of Worksop and East Retford Nottinghamshire. From 1980 to 1988, he was Clerk to the Justices at three courts - Barrow-in-Furness, Lonsdale North of the Sands and Millom, Cumbria - working from two offices, the main one being at Barrow. In 1988, he left an idyllic Lakeland Village of four hundred people to come to Hong Kong as a Magistrate! In 1997, he was appointed a Principal Magistrate (there is one at each of the Hong Kong Magistracies), the post held at the time of writing his contribution to A Magistrate’s Court in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong: Court in Time. From time to time he has acted as a District Court Judge.
"The contributors have written with insight and understanding ... a most readable book." — Sir T. L. Yang." (A Magistrate's Court)
Order "A Magistrate's Court in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong: Court in Time"
To visit the Proverse Hong Kong homepage and find links for ordering all the books named above: Proverse Hong Kong.